my humble muffins baking journey

Kaya Butter Muffins

After trying my first few bakes, which consists of mainly fruity ones – banana, strawberry, blueberries, lemon etc, the hubby commented that he isn’t such a big fan of sweet muffins, and that he would prefer to have savoury ones. NOW YOU SAY!?!

Anyway I thought hard about it… savoury.. hmm. Bacon muffins!? My colleague cringed when I presented the idea to her.

Just when I was about to give up that thought, one day my sister-in-law’s future parent-in-laws shared something with us. They told us that their daughter has set up a cafe at Australia selling kaya cakes, which turned out to be quite a hit with the locals.

KAYA!!!

So I turned to my best friend Google, and indeed, there were lots of kaya muffins recipes online! I settled on one to try out, and since this is one of my best bakes, I stand by this recipe!

I liked the recipe so much that I have already baked it twice! Of course I made some adjustments to the second try to improve on it. More will be shared later.

This is how it looks when split open. Nice dollop of kaya nestled snugly in the muffin. I used Ya Kun’s kaya by the way… it’s a tad too sweet so if you’re not one who likes your kaya too sweet, I would suggest getting one elsewhere.

My first time round baking this was considered a success. I brought 4 over to my parents-in-law’s place and my father-in-law ate one, and actually thought that it was bought by his wife from outside. *beams with confidence*

Now from an objective point of view, the muffins have some areas for improvement.

1) There’s a slight (just slight) sour taste to the muffins. I reckon it’s due to the use of Greek yogurt instead of the more common Swiss type. So I used the latter for the second try.

2) The original author of the recipe liked her muffins ‘naked’, so I followed her recipe, by leaving out the muffin cups. However, without the the muffin cups the muffins looks more ‘stout’ and flat. I like my muffins to be towering out of their muffin cups, so I decided to use them the second time round.

After baking muffins for a few times already, I figured that I should fill the batter to about 3/4 of the cups. Half of it will not give me the towering effect!

Adding the butter does make your entire muffin much more oily, but it also makes it more fragrant! Oh and no matter how you would like to amend the recipe, DO NOT compromise on the coconut oil. It is SO fragrant!

There you go.. an improved version of the Kaya Butter Muffins. You could compare the looks of it with the first version. This definitely looks more inviting to be eaten. Ooh and I really love how the kaya oozes out from the top of the muffins!